I forgot to mention: You can also gain a large amount of a certain civil skill on gear, equip that gear when needed and then unequip it for gear with better combat stats.
Example: Get a lot of gear with + bartering. Equip the bartering gear when making trades and then unequip it.
The game has such a nice point allocation system to specialize your characters in certain civil skills. Having them put on gear like this completely ruins the elegant system that's in place.
